Suing Newspapers for Rightfully Seeking Records Isn’t Cool, K.J.

Suing Newspapers for Rightfully Seeking Records Isn’t Cool, K.J.

The mayor of Sacramento, former basketball star Kevin Johnson, is currently suing the city’s alt weekly to stop reporters from obtaining emails that may, or may not, reveal improprieties in his office. The case represents an intersection of two key issues for EFF: transparency and freedom of the press. The mayor’s actions are harmful to both.

The Sacramento News & Review (SN&R) hasn’t done anything wrong—it simply asked for documents, which the city attorney agreed SN&R could have under the California Public Records Act (CPRA). But now it’s facing mounting legal bills as Johnson has taken the newspaper to court to prevent the emails from seeing the light of day.

As SN&R’s attorney—Thomas Burke of Davis Wright Tremaine—writes in its latest filing:

After SN&R made its public records request, [Johnson’s lawyer] contacted the reporter and said he would be named in a lawsuit unless he agreed that the City did not have to produce the request emails. When SN&R “stubbornly refused” to withdraw its request, the Mayor sued it, making good on his attorney’s word and turning the CPRA on its head.

According to SN&R, Gawker Media wanted intervene as a part of interest in the case, since its news site—Deadspin—had also filed a similar public records request. Even though the city is also a defendant in the case, the city opposed this move alongside K.J.’s privately obtained attorneys. That means for now SN&R, with its circulation of 68,000, will have to fight this court battle alone. First Look Media has since come through with a $15,000 grant for SN&R’s legal bills.

Deadspin has an in-depth look at the ongoing Johnson saga (and other, unrelated allegations), but the short version is that suspicions have fallen on Johnson that he may have used city resources to allegedly launch a “coup” within the National Conference of Black Mayors, before starting his own competing organization. The conflict subsequently resulted in extensive litigation. Fulfilling its role as government watchdogs, SN&R wanted to know whether taxpayer money—in the form of staff time and resources—was spent in the political scuffle.

K.J.’s lawsuit has also dragged out the process, effectively blocking reporting for months. The next motion hearing is scheduled for April 2016, where SN&R will ask the court to conduct an in camera review of all the withheld documents, make a determination of what documents are not covered by attorney-client privilege, and order those records immediately released. SN&R is pushing to move up the hearing date.

Rather than clear the air through transparency, Johnson’s decided to bring the newspaper to court. Well, welcome to the Streisand Effect, K.J. The more you try to suppress the press, the more attention you’ll draw—including ours.

Related Updates

Special thanks to legal intern Maria Bacha who was the lead author of this post. EFF, Student Press Law Center (SPLC), Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment (PaCFA), and Brechner Center for Freedom of Information filed an amicus brief in B.L. v. Mahanoy Area School District urging the U.S...

We pause this week to celebrate our longtime friend Gene Crick, a digital rights activist and former president of EFF-Austin, who passed away August 14 in Texas at age 73. Gene was a tireless advocate for free speech, a free, open, and inclusive Internet, and digital rights for everyone in...

Media outlets reported this week that an international student at Harvard University was deported back to Lebanon after border agents in Boston searched his electronic devices and confronted him about his friends’ social media posts. These allegations raise serious concerns about whether the government is following its own policies regarding...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit last week became the first federal appellate court to rule that Section 230 bars civil terrorism claims against a social media company. The plaintiffs, who were victims of Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel, argued that Facebook should be liable...

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and one of its component agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), released a Privacy Impact Assessment [.pdf] on CBP’s practice of monitoring social media to enhance the agency’s “situational awareness.” As we’ve argued in relation to other government social media surveillance...

The Senate Judiciary Committee recently held a hearing on “Protecting Digital Innocence.” The hearing covered a range of problems facing young people on the Internet today, with a focus on harmful content and privacy-invasive data practices by tech companies. While children do face problems online, some committee members seemed...

In a long-awaited ruling, the Second Circuit has found that the replies section on President Trump’s Twitter @realDonaldTrump is a public forum and that the President cannot block his critics from reading his tweets or participating in the forum merely because he dislikes the views they express. This ruling...

EFF is representing People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, challenging on First Amendment grounds the practice of Texas A&M University of automatically and manually blocking PETA and its supporters from posting comments on the university's official Facebook page, a forum that is otherwise open for public comments. In response...

This month, in many parts of the world, the LGBTQ+ community is celebrating Pride and, both online and off, the tech industry has paid lip service to supporting the community. Many social media companies participate in Pride parades or offer photo filters or other digital swag for users to show...